Chapter 8 - The Battle of Port 14
1:45 AM. The Port of Chicago.
The wind howling off Lake Michigan was brutal, carrying freezing spray that turned everything it touched into a sheet of black ice.
Warehouse 14 stood like a massive corrugated metal beast against the dark skyline, surrounded by stacks of shipping containers. Inside, high-powered halogen lights illuminated twenty armed Camorra mercenaries loading crates of illegal automatic weapons onto heavy transport trucks.
At the center of the warehouse stood Don Donato Camorra—a fat, arrogant man of fifty, wearing a heavy mink coat, sipping scotch from a crystal glass while reviewing his shipment manifests.
Suddenly, every light in the warehouse went black.
The emergency generators kicked on two seconds later, casting a eerie, dull red glow across the floor.
"What the hell?!" Donato shouted, dropping his scotch glass. "Check the fuses!"
From the high rafters above, a dark figure dropped silently through the skylight, swinging on a tactical rappelling line.
THUD.
Lydia landed silently on top of a shipping container, dressed in a sleek, black tactical suit, her dark hair pulled back into a tight braid, a suppressed submachine gun held in her gloved hands.
Before the guards could even raise their weapons, she unleashed a lethal burst of controlled fire.
SUPPRESSED BURSTS. TRIPLE-DAP.
Three Camorra guards collapsed onto the concrete floor before they even knew where the attack was coming from.
"Intruders!" Donato shrieked, ducking behind a steel crate. "Kill them!"
The warehouse erupted into gunfire.
At that exact second, the main steel rolling doors of the warehouse were blown inward by a massive explosive breach charge.
BOOM!
A heavy armored Moretti assault vehicle tore through the smoke and debris, its heavy steel bumper crushing two guard vehicles.
The side doors threw open, and Lorenzo stepped into the chaos, flanked by twenty elite Moretti enforcers. He held a high-powered shotgun in his right hand, firing with terrifying, rhythmic precision as he advanced through the kill zone like an unstoppable force of nature.
"Lorenzo Moretti!" Donato screamed in terror, scrambling backward toward the rear escape door.
Lydia dropped from the shipping container, rolling across the concrete floor, cutting off Donato’s escape route. She brought her boot up in a devastating side-kick, catching Donato’s bodyguard directly in the knee, snapping the joint, before driving her weapon’s buttstock into his jaw.
The bodyguard crumpled.
Donato pulled a gold-plated revolver from his mink coat, aiming it frantically at Lydia’s chest—
BLAM.
A shotgun slug tore through Donato’s right shoulder, spinning him around, slamming him onto the concrete floor.
Lorenzo walked through the settling smoke, his combat boots heavy against the concrete, his shotgun resting casually against his hip.
He stepped over the fallen guards, stopping beside Lydia. He looked her up and down, checking every inch of her black tactical suit for blood.
"Are you hurt?" Lorenzo demanded, his voice thick with anxiety.
Lydia wiped a streak of gun-grease from her cheek, giving him a brilliant, dangerous smile. "I told you I wouldn't get a scratch, Lorenzo."
Lorenzo let out a ragged breath, reaching out with his gloved hand to pull her against his chest, kissing her hard on the lips right in the middle of the smoking, blood-stained warehouse.
He turned his cold grey eyes down to Don Donato, who was weeping on the floor, clutching his shattered shoulder.
"Donato," Lorenzo said softly, racking another shell into his shotgun. "You made two mistakes. You tried to touch my brother..."
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He took Lydia’s hand into his, raising their joined fingers so Donato could see the black diamond ring shining under the red emergency lights.
"...and you entered my city while my Donna was on duty."
